Within Gloaming
by Angelas
Summary: In which Aragorn is struck with a bestial desire for Legolas. [aralas] Two-shot.


**Was in the mood for intense feels. These little shits were the first to cross my mind.**

**These are the weird results. o;**

**oOo**

**He** is everything that Aragorn has never thought to want.

He is the lasting fields of the great forests, he is the mist of the mountains.

He is a tearaway star set upon a marbled dream of white. Pure of thought like a Vestal statue, touched by the scented scheme of night.

He is the snow laden winds of the distance dusting silently across his long hair as he sprints through drifts and climbs to high-tops, leaving Aragorn and Gimli far behind him.

He is the water of the lakes of which they often pass, fluid and timeless, light-footed in his Elven stride. He is the sunlight of the dawn, examining Gimli's axe and helmet with the insatiable curiosity of a sheltered lamb (curiosity of which Aragorn watches with another kind of _interest_, but resists it all the more).

His skin is the veil which surely enshrouds the warmth of milk to its color. He is the haunting allure of the Fangorn Forest, he is the freshness of grass. He is the hot, humid air which begins to encase them the closer they get to the malignant borders of Isengard.

He is the lissom roots of young trees.

He is electric, he is magnetic, and he is never-ending.

He is light.

But Aragorn learns this all too late, and is instead stricken with a wonder that he can no longer bring himself to placate.

The hard journey derives him, however.

Derives him from perhaps reaching out and touching, just _once_; stops him from speaking of an absurdity that would indeed drive the Elvish sylph far into the distance, never to return to his eye's seeing grasp.

It is his own fault, Aragorn thinks.

It is his fault for wanting something that was not meant for his claim, nor for the transgression of his mannish hands.

And though Arwen waits for him in all of her pining and ravishing grace, Aragorn knows only that the deviancy of his dreams wouldn't leave him even if he were to be buried in her brace, anyway; that he is doomed to a blackened lust – an animal need arising in his silver eyes that would never quite cease long as Legolas continued to swing his hips as if he knew fully well of their hellish results.

Aragorn fears for himself.

And so he would quietly gratify the secret thirst of his desires whilst watching the Elf as he leapt through the trees, as he laughed alongside Gimli, breathing, living, moving, and seeming to dance as a clover would sway in the midst of high winds as he slaughtered Orc by the score. And the Elf would never sweat, would never once arise filthy from the killings; always lucent and always lovely, and Aragorn knew not how he would be able to keep his fevered hand away from the buckle of his belt with each night that cometh.

But it is the Elf who had surely painted this witchery upon him.

For Legolas had arrived into Aragorn's world with all of the cruelty that his pious virility and long, Elven limbs had allowed him; a ceaseless ocean of pale-wheat hair, and with a set of guiltless eyes that shone and shone – his youthful impetus. And he looks horrifically young – too young – to be sacrificing himself to such a grievous journey, but it is his gift of deathlessness that would forever feign his age of centuries.

Indeed Legolas' presence lends a fire of fervor to the remainder of their company, his constant verve and spirit.

And he is wise.

By the Gods, is he wise.

Silent and knowing, and Aragorn knows little why such ilk of being should come to exist at his side.

It is the vivacity of Legolas' smile, he thinks, that flirts and tempts him faster and harder to perhaps dent slightly upon the promise that keeps him tightly knotted to the Evenstar.

It is the pinkness of his thin lips, ready to be swallowed, and of his coltish gazes of which the Elf directs blatantly towards Aragorn from the opposite side of their nightly campfires.

Oh, and it _hardens_ him, makes Aragorn ache and shift where he sits, longing and burning to part open those impossibly long legs in order to sink deep within – against the crudeness of the ground, inside the concealing mist of the lake, in some place dark and unspoken.

He is sick and wasted inside where others cannot touch, appalled by his wishes – his silent fixation.

But he maintains his stoic and reserved demeanor like a true warrior of old, heir of Isildur, and forces himself to hardly look when he knows fully well that Legolas is staring, perhaps watching his thoughts unfold like a picture book, foreseeing his own nakedness from underneath Aragorn's worship.

And as each day passes, Aragorn's craving goes unquenched just as it goes unsaid, and they travel instead in mostly silence, if not for Gimli's merriment for the more dangerous side of things.

So Aragorn only watches – as Legolas and Gimli banter and laugh and sometimes sing silly songs – whilst he counts and counts the Elf's countless virtues. And so it is that he must meld himself into the illusion of valorous thoughts, because, after all, Merry and Pippin count on them still for a valiant rescue –

_Oh_, but he is the _**rain**;_

a hurricane of leaves. Cool water and sinless alacrity.

He is as able as he is beautiful, as kind as he is brave, as quiet as he is curious.

He is lithe, tall, honest, he is weightless.

Aragorn runs his ruthless gaze over him, the lasting length of his hair as he stands watch on the branch of a tree, staring far into the distance. The indecent amount of definition that those leggings offer is maddening; fir thread edged with filthy fantasies of mint shreds and snow-white skin.

Aragorn is thankful for the long distance that separates them, for it diverts his senses from imagining how soft his skin must be.

The supple swell from just underneath the hem of Legolas' doublet is distracting, and Aragorn knows that if he had known Legolas when he, too, was young and handsome and unfastened from the ties that bound him to Arwen's wedded hand, he would have been a tongue-tied, weak-kneed fool before the Elf's presence.

He would have fretted over his words, he would have been taken; unbearably smitten.

And perhaps he would have been toyed with, anyway, lured and seduced with not a promise of keeping, but at least he would have had a _chance_. As he is now, he can offer Legolas nothing. He is broken, wretched, and so far gone into the cesspit of his own vicious arousal.

He wants to take the Elf by the hair and haul him against a wall, tear what he can until he could see only its white body, bare and writhing. He wants to fuck into him 'neath the moonlight's clasp, deep and dark. He wants to turn him over and mount him like a dog, like a thing possessed. He wants to hear the Elf sob and claw for more despite it.

He wants to kiss him, touch him, and make use of his infuriating mouth. He wants to tie him down so that he could never hope to escape, he wants to spend inside of him and drink him dry.

He wants his screams, his pink lips wrapped tightly around his cock–

Aragorn wants many things.

But it haunts him, and he tortures himself, burning to feel the heat of the Elf's skin against his own: an ache so heartless and fierce that he can almost envisage the wraith of Legolas' touch like a scorching brand upon his mouth.

He is desperate to hear the Elf mewl his name. He longs to taste him, have him, only to have him again.

A part of Aragorn is glad that there is so much standing between them, for he would never possibly be sated with the things that Legolas would give. He would never be fulfilled, and Aragorn knows this more than he knows most things.

He would devour Legolas in felt thirst, pour himself in him and on him, take him, and take him, and take him, _and take him_–

No, there would be no end;

If not the delicate limits of his mannish restraint.

**oOo**

It grows cold and black one night, and Aragorn knows that they must soon rest.

His lungs burn from having covered many miles in just one morning, and Gimli is nearly heaving in pain.

Legolas, of course, stands unbridled and perfect. He does not sweat, does not take in deep, desperate breaths. Instead, he raises a single dark brow, surprised by the utter fatigue of his companions.

"Must we rest?" he asks, a coyness in his voice, and Aragorn almost loathes him for it.

"Ai, laddy," says Gimli, huffing as he collapses against a nearby boulder. "One more step and I swear by the Durins that I would be left with no legs."

Aragorn nods, breathless. He goes over to the opposite rock and sits against it. Gimli is a soothing respite. Gimli, in a way, has kept him sane.

Legolas stands there for a moment, hair lurching in the air like a tussock of untamed lace before he, too, finds a place to sit in.

Aragorn dares not to look at him. They breathe in utter silence, until it is eventually fated that Aragorn notice from the corner of his eye as Legolas reached for his bow from the hinge on his back and laid it carefully beside him.

Aragorn notes without thinking that the Elf has only six arrows left.

"Growing tactless, I see," he finds himself saying.

Legolas looked then to his quiver and smiled. "An elf dares not carry a quiver of arrows upon his back unless he knows fully well how to make new ones." He took one into his hand and traced its length with a long, white finger. Aragorn stared. "But I deem these should last another good long while. I enjoy a challenge."

Aragorn allowed the conversation to die soon after. He did not trust himself to continue when Gimli was not there to listen.

As it was, Gimli had collapsed onto his side by then, snoring in earnest from within a deep, Dwarven sleep.

The air between them grew still as stone. The howling of nearby trees felt to have grown louder.

They are together in the dark. There is no fire, only stars in the distant sky.

Legolas looks at Aragorn for a long moment, and then turns away just as quietly. He doesn't understand that 'neath his honest glance Aragorn is burning alive in the black fires of his lust.

Legolas' eyes, after all, are a subtle weapon. Vast ocean waters dwell within them, a threat to consume and entice without the minimal need of his exertion.

But Aragorn had already fallen victim long ago. He has drowned, and he feels as though he wishes to drown even further.

He invites the Elf to a mutual gathering of wood, for a campfire. It is unforgivably cold, and Legolas agrees that it would be best for the sake of an assured rest for the long day that followed.

Gimli continues to sleep, and so both Legolas and Aragorn stand and disappear into the nearby cluster of trees without another word to each other.

**oOo**

When he has him alone at last, Aragorn grows bold, and he hungers.

He feels like a beast, like a predator that lurks in shadow, and he cannot hope to stop himself from cornering Legolas from somewhere in the darkness.

Genuinely surprised, Legolas nearly gasped, and he dropped the small pile of timber that he had gathered in his arms. He found himself pinned back against the thick trunk of a tree. His wrists were held tightly above him. He looked to Aragorn, a sort of confusion knit into his brow.

His lips part, there is a question caked into his throat.

"You've tempted me enough." Aragorn searched Legolas' bewildered gaze. "You must know that."

But Aragorn knows that Legolas must be twice as strong as him, and that the reign he had on the Elf's wrists could not possibly compare to the strength that Legolas kept dormant in his strong arms as he did nothing and instead looked on with a wretched innocence bedded beautifully into his eyes.

Aragorn had lost the last of his restraint that day. The fire had won.

He would allow himself to burn.

He smashed his lips against the Elf's, and felt what he ached to have felt against him for many lonely moons.

It is the start of something hideous.

Of something pure.

**oOo**

**dun-dun-dunnn. xx**


End file.
